Civved : Masinagudi

This is a discussion on Civved : Masinagudi within Travelogues, part of the Buckle Up category; Lovely Travelogue. My family and I never thought of visiting Masinagudi on the few trips we have had made to ...

Lovely Travelogue. My family and I never thought of visiting Masinagudi on the few trips we have had made to Ooty. We will make it a point to go there on our next trip.
Thanks for pointing us in the right direction.
Regards,
Ashok

I am big fan of you travelogues.
The opening image is quite a clincher. Simply superb narrative with few words & many pictures. Eagerly waiting for more.
I love the perspectives of images. Simply beautiful. By the way while on drive how do you manage to find time to take so many "well done" shots

Thanks wireless. I was there for some days, hence could fork out some time for clicks

Quote:

Originally Posted by n_mouli

Simply awesome pics!! Was looking for some travel location post Summer (didn't want to get to Ooty in summer) and your travelogue seems to have made the decision for me!!

Thanks n_mouli.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashphil

Lovely Travelogue. My family and I never thought of visiting Masinagudi on the few trips we have had made to Ooty. We will make it a point to go there on our next trip.
Thanks for pointing us in the right direction.
Regards,
Ashok

We started from Bangalore by 05:00AM. I wanted to avoid driving through Mysore road, so decided to drive via Kanakapura route.

Took Nice road and exited at Kanakapura road and continued on towards Kollegal. We reached the famous Shivana Samudra falls by around 06:45AM. Since we had already seen GaganChukki falls in a recent trip to Wayanad (which I have not yet written about), we decided to visit Bhara Chukki Falls.

We reached the Bhara Chukki falls detour by 07:00AM. Well this is quite impressive, in two hours from Bangalore you can reach a nice falls.

Note the advice given about the precautions to be taken here
Parked our Civvy
There was an old bridge across the river

Looked quite impressive

It's quite long too

It was time to go to the falls

We drove to Bhara Chukki falls only to be told that the gates open after 08:30AM, well that was at least a 1.5 hours wait. Decided not to wait now, and to continue onward to Masinagudi.

But we wanted to rest for a while

Parked Civvy under a nice tree.
PPGs took a Power nap, while I tried some clicks

We started by 08:00AM from Bhara Chukki and drove towards Masinagudi. After crossing into Tamil Nadu, we saw this fellow happily grazing near the road.
He was not disturbed by the amount of passing vehicles

He went on doing his business
A pity, he never looked at us!

We reached Mudhumalai by 10:30AM

Our rooms will be ready only by 12:00. Hence decided to contribute to the local economy and hired a jeep.
We hired a jeep
Jr. PPG all happy to be in the jeep!

Nilgiri Police have given a clean chit to the jeep

We decided to go to Moyar
Jr. PPG all smiles with the bumpy ride

Some 10 odd kilometers to Moyar

You can drive your vehicles to this place, but since I just wanted to talk to the guys from this place, a jeep ride was better as you can take all the info you want from the jeep driver and can gauge first hand what is around there. Damages - Rs 600 for a trip of two hours.

We reached Masinagudi by 12:00. But our Civvy was at Theppekkadu
Ooty is just 29KM from Masinagudi
And our resort was just another 5KM, but then we needed to get our Civvy back.
Masinagudi has a Police Station too

There is a checkpost towards Mudhumalai. It is open from 06:00AM till 10:00PM
Mudhumalai is a Tiger Reserve

We went towards Mudhumalai
It gave a feel of autumn!

But mostly the place was dry
Nice Tree
At some places the forest was fenced too

After some two hours of rest I decided to get out to explore Singara. Jr. PPG decided to join me in the venture. Sr. PPG and Wifey decided to continue their rest. So we both drove out by 15:30 hours from the resort towards Singara.
The resort was near a small hill
Jr. PPG played a bit the friendly calf
Civvy waiting for us to get back
We drove all the way till Singara Checkpost

It was a prohibited area
We needed permission to enter this area

We did not have permissions, but still when I spoke to the security staff they allowed me to enter with one request not to photograph anything there. I obliged, and along with Jr. PPG walked around the place. This is the place where power is generated from the waters from Glennmorgan. We saw the pen stocks which bring the water from Glennmorgan dam till here. We went in search of the winch through which the power house staff checks out the setup. Unfortunately that were stationed at the mid point and we could not see it. But still we were happy to have understood the orientation of the place. There is a guest house here and with permission from TNEB, you can stay there it seems. But then not in this trip. Will do some more research before deciding to stay back one day there. Singara forest is dense and wildlife sightings are quite good as per the information I got. There are safaris possible in the early morning here for a cost of Rs 3500. Well that too got kept for another trip.